Sustainability Center: Grant Writing

 

These Subject searches target the national and global context of local sustainability efforts:

 

Environmental economics
Environmental education

Environmental ethics

Environmental justice

Environmental justice--United States

Environmental policy

Environmental policy--United States

Environmental protection

Environmental protection--Citizen participation

Environmental protection--United States

Environmental health

Environmental law--United States

Environmental management

Environmental monitoring

Environmental responsibility

Environmental sciences--Philosophy

Environmentalism

Environmentalism--United States

United States--Environmental conditions

Ecology

Ecology--Moral and ethical aspects

Ecology--Philosophy

Green Revolution

Green movement

 

These Subject searches target pollution, waste management, and sustainability:

 

Environmental degradation

Pollution--Environmental aspects

Pollution--United States

Air--Pollution

Air quality management

Water--Pollution

Water quality management

Land use--Environmental aspects
Agricultural ecology
Sustainable agriculture
Alternative agriculture
Organic farming

Urbanization--Environmental aspects

Automobiles--Environmental aspects

Sewage disposal

Sewage--Environmental aspects

Refuse and refuse disposal--United States   [garbage, landfill]

Environmental toxicology

Recycling (Waste, etc.)

Sustainable development   [sustainability]

Sustainable development--United States
Sustainable development--New York (State)--Ithaca
Sustainable development--Study and teaching
Sustainable living
Organic living
Simplicity
Ecological houses
Dwellings--Environmental engineering
Dwellings--Energy conservation

Green technology

Green products
Natural foods
Natural foods industry
Slow food movement
Farmers' markets
 

These Subject searches target energy resources and policy:

 

Power resources

Power resources United States

Energy policy--United States

Energy consumption--United States

Energy conservation--United States

Energy development

Energy development--Environmental aspects

Renewable energy sources

Solar energy

Wind power

Hydrogen as fuel

Biomass energy

These Subject searches target commnity action:

Communities
Community life
Community life--United States
Community development
Community development--United States
Community organization
Community organization--United States
Community power
Community leadership
City and town life
City and town life--United States.
Urbanization--United States
Neighborhoods
 

 These Subject searches target sustainability and energy conservation on college campuses: 

Universities and Colleges--Envrionmental aspects
Universities and Colleges--Envrionmental aspects--Congresses
Universities and Colleges--Envrionmental aspects--New York (State)--Ithaca
Universities and Colleges--Envrionmental aspects--United States

 General OneFile :
     Our most user friendly database.   The best Subject searches will be "Sustainable development," "Sustainable Urban Development," "Environmental sustainability," "Environmental policy," "Green design," "Renewable energy," "Recycling," and "Waste disposal."  For each of these, open the  "subdivisions" which can target  "Economic aspects," "Forecasts and Trends," "Laws, " "Management," "Methods," and "Planning," to name only a few.  Or to target these issues as they play out at the community level, try Subject searches on "Community" or "Community Development" or "Neighborhoods" and look at the subdivisions "Energy policy," "Energy use," "Environmental aspects," and "Environmental policy."

ProQuest Research Library :
     Click "Continue" on the opening screen and at the search screen open the "More Sarch Options" tab on the lower left.  Both "Sustainable development" and "Renewable energy sources" are available as Subject headings here.  You can add Keywords to provide further focus.  Or you can combine these Subjects with other Subjects: Sustainability with Community Development or Community Action.  Note: Since both Sustainability  and Sustainable figure in the Subject headings here, as well as both Community and Communities, one good way to retrieve everything is to use the ProQuest truncation symbol at the ends of the roots: try a Subject search on Communit* and Sustainab*

Academic Search Premier :
     Like General OneFile and ProQuest above, a very large multidisciplinary database with a lot of full text.  Note that you can preview the "Subject Terms" above the search slots.  When you find one you like, double click it to see related Subject terms.  For a broad view, try combining "Sustainable Development" with "Communities" as Subjects.  "Sustainable Communities" is also available as a Subject here.

LexisNexis Academic :
     This is our best database for 100% full text inational and local newspaper articles--and many (many) papers run articles about sustainability efforts at local colleges and universities.  Don't settle for the default General "Easy Search" but instead click  "News" on the left and then "All news.".  Change the default "Anywhere in article" search to the "In Headline & Lead Paragraph" option for better focus, or use the "At Least 5 Occurences" option.  Also change the default "Major World Publications" to "US Newspapers & Wires." This would be a good database in which to explore who is giving funding for sustainability projects at the local level.  In "Headline & Lead Paragraph" try sustainab! and communit! and (grant! or fund!).  The exclamation mark is the truncation symbol here, which is useful in Keyword searching to cover different forms of the same word.  For example, sustainab! will retrieve both sustainable and sustainability.  Since you want your information about funding sources to be current, set "Specify Date" to "Previous Year."  And finally be aware that when you retrieve a set of articles you can still add extra search terms in the "Search within results" slot on the upper right.
   
GreenFILE :
     Try a combined "Community Involvement" as a Subject and Sustainab* as a keyword ("Select a field"). Note: * is the truncation symbol in this database.  Also available as Subjects here are "Sustainable Communities" and "Sustainable Living."

ScienceDirect :
     Because it’s a large database with a great deal of full text, the absence of Subject searching means that your Keyword searches will often retrieve large sets of articles, many of which mention but don’t discuss your search term(s). One way around this is to limit your initial search to the “Abstract Title Keyword” field. Once you have found an article that sounds on-target, click the “Related Articles” link beneath the citation. This will open a range of articles on the same topic.  For example, try a seach in the "Abstract Title Keyword" field on "sustainable communit*" (the quotation marks keep the words together as a phrase and the * is the truncation symbol here, so communit* gives you both community and communities). Then scan for the article that seems most relevant and click on the "Related Articles" link.

Environmental Issues

Check out our Social Science Librarian John Henderson's Sustainability guide.

• Alliance for Sustainability: "The mission of the Alliance is to bring about personal, organizational & planetary sustainability through support of projects that are ecologically sound, economically viable, socially just and humane. " Good site--see especially "Good neighborhoods & Cities" and be sure to visit their gateway to online resources--helpfully categorized--under Link Library.

• Sustainable Communities Online: Lots of good content here, particularly under "Community" (see especially "Civic Engagement"), and under "Living" see "Education, Training, and Lifelong Learning."

• Partnership for Sustainable Communities: Quite a bit of content from this national organization dedicated to information, research, and advocacy.  Use the article categories on the left and see especially "Advocacy Tools" and "Development Strategy & Design."

• Community Sustainability Assessment: from the Global Ecovillage Network, this offers a 40-page assessment instrument, which might be helpful in establishing the need for a Sustainability Storefront.

• Sustainable Living Links: Comprehensive gateway from U Mass Dartmouth.

• Right-to-Know Network: Provides means to search by city and zipcode to find records of toxic pollution, hazmat permits, and civil lawsuits in the surrounding area.  Scroll down to "Search for Toxic Releases" on the right and enter Ithaca and 14850.

• Sustainability: a round-up of features on efforts at Cornell and in the Ithaca community.  And of course check out Sustainability at IC, which also addresses community projects and concerns.

• Sustainable Living Project: From Oregon State University, lots of interesting linked materials here in categories such as Lifestyle and Consumerism.

• Green Architecture & Sustainable Living: Excellent gateway to online resources from University of Missouri-Columbia.

•  World Wide Web Virtual Library: Sustainable Development: A sprawling list of links for Web resources--but patience can be rewarded here. In particular, scroll down to the "Projects, Activities" section for ideas and examples.

• Handbook of Sustainability Literacy:  A UK site, this Handbook is comprehensive and available full text here: just click on "Chapters from the Paperback," pick a chapter, and scroll down to the pdf download.

• Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy; This is a peer-reviewed (scholarly), open-access (free) e-journal.  The practice and policy articles might be especially helpful.

  Web Directories differ from search engines like Google in that all the online resources have been selected and annotated by editors, thereby promising a much higher degree of quality control.  The two best should prove useful in their categorization of Sustainability resources:

• Open Directory Project: Sustainability
• IPL2: Environment & Ecology
  

  Google Advanced Search: When doing research on the Web, always use the Adanced Search version of Google. This not only provides more flexibility in entering search terms, but more importantly it allows you to target the Web domains that are likely to provide the most authoritative information.
     Under "Need More Tools?" you will find the "Search within a site or domain" slot. You may enter only one domain at a time, but it's worth targeting each of the three domains likely to supply the best information: colleges and universities (enter the "edu" tag), nonprofit organizations (enter the "org" tag), and the United States government (enter the "gov" tag).

Noodlebib guides you through the required data entry for citation in the MLA, APA, and Chicago/Turabian styles. It takes care of punctuation, alphabetization and formatting, producing a polished source list for import into Word.

Trouble getting started?  Try my Noodlebib Users' Guide.